Misplaced value

I'll get right to the point with today's post. My goal with this year's Lent discipline was to purge myself of the things that I hoard for no reason other than the compulsion to hold onto stuff - and instead focus on the things that have actual value to me, whether functional or sentimental. My plan has never been to eliminate my collection of Transformers completely (although I'm trying to open to that if God should so lead) but rather to pair down my collection to something more focused and less out of control.

That's not to say that parting with these toys isn't difficult for me - I'm a completionist - they type of collector that sets a series of parameters and tries to collect all of the items within those parameters to have a "complete set". From time to time those parameters have shifted and I have purged my collection to retool it to the new parameters. You can usually tell what the focus of my collection is by what is on display at the time. For instance, in my office you'll find my Transformers:Animated collection, and my Rodimus/Hot Rod collection. At home you'll find many of my Universe/Generations toys out on display. In storage are many toys that don't quite fit into any of those categories but that I have nonetheless held onto because of their value - either sentimental or financial as well as some figures that I just don't have room to display with their collections. Occasionally one of those figures that doesn't fit the established parameters is so special that it finds it's way onto display in spite of it's exceptional status - a prime example would be today's figure: Alternator's Hound.

The Transformers: Alternators line of toys was a bit of an anomaly in itself back when it first came out. It was an attempt to make a more Grown-up style of toy that paid homage to classic characters by transforming  them into licensed models of real world vehicles rather than stylized cartoony approximations. The distribution of these toys was spotty at best - some figures were overstocked and became shelf-warmers and others were shorted in their product waves and became very rare and highly sought after. There were also two packaging variants the earlier box and the later bubble and then there was the difference between the generic characters they created to fill out the line and those that were real throw backs to famous Generation One characters. When all of these factors aligned (short supply, old packaging and famous character) you have the recipe for a valuable figure. That's exactly what I have here in Hound.

Hound has been on display for most of the time I've owned him, and even when I purged myself of most of the other figures in the Alternators line I simply couldn't part with this figure. But the recent events of my trip have left me asking myself why. I've never been a big fan of Hound's character, I've never really been fond of the toy on its own merits and I'm not interested in collecting his line anymore so why have I been compelled to hold onto him? I think the answer is a simple case of misplaced value.

We have a way of focusing on the wrong things in life and letting trends, media and society dictate value to us rather than making sensible value judgments ourselves. In Revelation 3, in the letter to the church in Laodecia the Spirit says the following: "You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see." Sometimes the things that we think make us rich are not the things that really matter - we wrongly ascribe value to things that have no real value. You could easily make the argument that none of my Transformers have any real value and on one level you'd be absolutely correct but I'm working on baby steps here and in the context of my own personal journey here I'm learning that some of the things that I consider valuable just aren't. 

So today I'm pulling Hound off the shelf and packaging him up for sale - and hopefully the market forces that drive Transformers enthusiasts like me will still consider him to have significant value - because to me he doesn't - and I have the feeling he's only the tip of the iceberg.

Tomorrow is Sunday, and traditionally Sundays don't count in the season of Lent (I'm no exactly sure why - but it makes the whole 40 days math work out) so I'm likely not going to post anything tomorrow, but check back Monday to see what else I decide to part with.

Blessings,

Chris